Dear Host Family, I hope you´re doing well and I´m really looking forward to meeting you all soon. I´m Lara and I live in the south of Germany. At the beginning of this school year, my school offered me to participate in an exchange program. As I really like new experiences and I´m very interested in other countries and cultures, I was very happy about that possibility. For me it was clear that I would choose the USA because, since I´ve been a little child, I always wanted to go to a real American High School, see real American Football games and experience the spirit of the USA. I´m a very sociable person and I enjoy meeting new people and spend pleasant time together. For me, reliable people, honesty and care are really important. I´m interested in a lot of things and I really like trying out new activities, food or sports. That may be the reason why I do lots of different activities in my free time. On the first hand-side I like creative things like music or singing, arts and painting, shopping or playing theatre. But mostly I love sports and I do all kind of sporty activities. My friends and I are really active and actually do a lot of things, when we spend time together, like playing volleyball by the lake and swimming if it gets to warm, go bouldering, climbing, skating, jogging or having barbecue in the summer, because I really like warm summer days. Furthermore I´m a real family person and I love spending time with them. We go hiking, do acrobatics and can talk openly about all our problems, our visions and whatever bothers us. I really like kids and I´m happy that I have a little brother I can spend time with. So, it also would be great, if I had host siblings. As I already mentioned, show acrobatics is one of my favorite hobbies. With my sports-club “Sporttheater”, we show our performances all over my country and sometimes even abroad, e.g. in Finland, the Netherlands or Austria. We aren´t focused on competitions, rather I want to fascinate the audience with our tricks. I love looking at happy faces. At an international festival last year, we also met an US acrobatics group and I even was able to exchange my national team jacked with an US-Team member, so I am very happy to own an original US-Team jacket now. I´m doing acrobatics since I can remember and really like the open and outgoing people I met while practicing it. That´s also the reason, why I can’t wait to see real Cheerleading in the USA or probably even try some tricks. As I already said I´m very interested in the High School Spirit and excited to try out American Afterschool Clubs. Besides sports I also love nature, and animals. My family and I have a lot of pets, like budgies and rabbits and I also like to go horse riding sometimes. In Germany we often eat cookies called “Nussmakronen”, especially at christmas time, that I often bake and eat and, of course, it would be nice to exchange some cooking recipes. Well, that was a short overview of my hobbies and likes and because I´m a very optimistic person and always try to see the best in every situation or person, I´m sure that exchange will be awesome. Thank you for offering people like me the opportunity to become a part of your family and gain experiences abroad ! So, I hope we will have a great time together and I´m so excited to see you and the real USA soon. Best wishes Your host child Lara